Quick answer: A finance degree points at the money-decision side of business - advisory, corporate finance, lending, analysis. Its flagship occupation, personal financial advisors, carries a median of $105,070 and 9.6 percent projected growth (BLS OEWS, May 2025; EP 2024-34). 773 colleges awarded the degree in 2024, 711 with fully online options (IPEDS 2024). How it differs from accounting - a question worth settling before choosing either page - is covered below.
Finance is the forward-looking half of business’s money work: valuing investments, structuring capital, managing risk, advising households and companies on what to do next with their money. The bachelor’s is the hiring credential across advisory, corporate finance, banking and lending; the master’s matters later, mostly for specialized analysis and management tracks.
It is not accounting, and the two degrees should not be shopped interchangeably. Accounting records and verifies what happened; finance decides what happens next. They share early coursework and then split into different professions with different credential ladders - the CPA on one side, the CFP and CFA on the other. This site covers accounting on its own page; if the work you picture is producing accurate statements, start there instead.
It is also not a license. Securities work runs through FINRA examinations under a sponsoring firm, investment-adviser registration runs through the SEC and state regulators, and the CFP board sets its own education and examination requirements. The degree feeds all of those systems and replaces none of them.
Most programs cover corporate finance, investments and portfolio theory, financial statement analysis, financial markets and institutions, risk management, and financial modeling in spreadsheets - typically with an economics and statistics spine underneath. Programs registered with the CFP Board additionally cover the planning curriculum: insurance, retirement, estate and tax planning. If advisory work is the goal, that registration is worth filtering for.
Before you request information anywhere, compare finance programs enrolling now:
Every school listed is verified in federal IPEDS data both to award this degree and to offer programs that can be completed entirely by distance education at this level. Whether this exact degree is delivered fully online varies by school, so confirm the format before you apply.
This page lists 10 schools, closest group first, then ordered by BOC Score with the highest at the top. 10 of them carry a score.
Scores come from IPEDS (2024) and the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard. Earnings are for all graduates of a school, not one program, so treat them as a signal about the institution rather than about this subject. Sponsored listings are paid placements and are labelled as such; they are separate from this ranking and never change it. Read the full methodology.
Source: ACCSC IPEDS College Scorecard
Source: ACCSC IPEDS College Scorecard
Source: ACCSC IPEDS College Scorecard
Source: ACCSC IPEDS College Scorecard
Source: ACCSC IPEDS College Scorecard
Source: ACCSC IPEDS College Scorecard
Source: ACCSC IPEDS College Scorecard
Source: ACCSC IPEDS College Scorecard
Source: ACCSC IPEDS College Scorecard
Source: ACCSC IPEDS College Scorecard
The gates in finance belong to regulators and credentialing boards, not universities. Securities representatives pass FINRA-administered examinations sponsored by their firm. Investment advisers register federally or with their state. The CFP credential - the standard for personal planning - requires a bachelor’s degree, board-registered coursework, an examination and experience hours. The CFA charter, the analysis side’s equivalent, layers three examinations on top of a degree. In every case the degree is the entry condition, and the credential is the differentiator. Plan which ladder you are climbing before choosing a program, because the right coursework differs.
With 711 of 773 awarding institutions reporting fully online programs (IPEDS 2024), the format question is settled. The sequencing question matters more: bank, credit union and brokerage employers routinely hire operations and service staff without the finished degree and tuition-assist the rest of it, which turns the credential into a promotion path rather than a prerequisite. Bookkeeping experience and prior business coursework commonly transfer - get the evaluation in writing.
| Measure | Personal Financial Advisors | Bookkeeping, Accounting and Auditing Clerks |
|---|---|---|
| National median pay | $105,070/yr | $50,670/yr |
| Employment | 266,800 | 1,373,680 |
| Projected growth, 2024-34 | +9.6% | -5.8% |
| Openings per year | 24,100 | 170,000 |
Source: BLS OEWS, May 2025; BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34.
The table’s second column is the field’s floor and its warning. Bookkeeping - the common first job in money work - pays a median of $50,670 and is projected to shrink 5.8 percent as software absorbs it. The advisory tier pays a median of $105,070, grows at 9.6 percent, and its top decile above $357,020 reflects asset-based compensation rather than salary (BLS OEWS, May 2025). The degree plus the regulatory credentials is the documented bridge from the shrinking column to the growing one.
For the advisory and corporate tracks, the numbers are among the strongest in the business family. The honest caveats: entry advisory jobs have high washout because early compensation depends on building a client book, and the field’s prestige tiers (investment banking, institutional analysis) recruit narrowly from feeder schools. The widest reliable path - regional advisory firms, banks, credit unions, corporate finance departments - is exactly the one the 773 awarding institutions serve. Individual outcomes may vary.
Finance employment splits three ways: advisory work distributes with population and wealth (every metro has households to plan for), banking and lending follow regional financial centers, and corporate finance sits where headquarters do. That mix makes state pay differences larger than most fields on this site - the same CFP work prices very differently across markets - which is what the state pages below are for: local pay, local employment, and the colleges within reach that award the degree.
If advisory work is the destination, one program feature outweighs the rest: CFP Board registration. Registered programs map their coursework to the planning curriculum the examination tests, which spares you a second round of certificate coursework after graduation. Ask for the program’s registration status in writing, ask what share of graduates sit for the examination, and ask which firms recruit from the program - the answers separate a finance degree that feeds the advisory ladder from one that merely mentions it.
Personal financial advisors - the field's flagship client-facing occupation - earn a national median of $105,070 across 266,800 jobs, with the top 10 percent above $357,020, largely because much of the work is compensated on assets and commissions (BLS OEWS, May 2025). Corporate finance, lending and analysis roles cluster lower but still well above the all-occupation median.
Direction of time. Accounting records and reports what already happened - transactions, statements, audits, tax. Finance decides what happens next - investment, valuation, capital structure, risk. The curricula overlap in the first year and diverge hard after; the professions have different credentials (CPA versus CFP and CFA) and different work. If your interest is keeping books accurately, the accounting page covers that path.
Yes. 711 of the 773 institutions awarding this degree report offering programs entirely by distance education at this level (IPEDS 2024). Finance is spreadsheet-and-model work, which translates to the online format as cleanly as any subject in the business family.
Yes, and it comes from regulators rather than colleges. Selling securities requires passing FINRA-administered examinations under a sponsoring firm, investment advisers register through the SEC or state regulators, and the CFP credential - the profession's education-plus-examination standard for planning - requires a bachelor's degree and specific coursework. The degree satisfies education requirements inside those systems; it licenses nothing by itself.
The advisory tier strongly so: BLS projects personal financial advisor employment to grow 9.6 percent from 2024 to 2034, with about 24,100 openings per year (BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34) - among the faster-growing business occupations. Individual outcomes may vary.
More than it first appears. Tradespeople who have run a business have already lived cash flow, margin, equipment financing and payroll - the raw material of finance. Bookkeeping is the common first formal step, and the degree converts that operational fluency into advisory, lending or corporate finance work where industry knowledge of construction and contracting is genuinely scarce.
State pay, licensing and metro-level data for this degree. Wage and employment figures on every state page come from BLS OEWS, May 2025.
Alabama * Arizona * Arkansas * California * Colorado * District of Columbia * Florida * Georgia * Hawaii * Idaho * Illinois * Indiana * Iowa * Kansas * Kentucky * Maryland * Michigan * Minnesota * Mississippi * Missouri * Nebraska * Nevada * New Hampshire * New Jersey * New Mexico * New York * North Carolina * North Dakota * Ohio * Oklahoma * Oregon * Pennsylvania * Rhode Island * South Carolina * South Dakota * Tennessee * Texas * Utah * Vermont * Virginia * Washington * West Virginia * Wisconsin * Wyoming
About this guide: Researched and written by the TradeCareerPath Editorial Team. Our editorial team researches and sources every trade school and career guide using federal labor and education data, including BLS OEWS and Employment Projections, DOL apprenticeship records, IPEDS, College Scorecard, and state licensing boards. We follow the editorial standards documented at /editorial-policy/.
